Solicitors at Manchester firm Tuckers will hit the TV screens next week for the first episode in a two-part documentary that looks at the world of criminal lawyers and their clients.

Solicitors at Manchester firm Tuckers will hit the TV screens next week for the first episode in a two-part documentary that looks at the world of criminal lawyers and their clients.

ITV1's The Briefs follows lawyers from the Manchester firm - one of the region's largest criminal legal aid practices - as they represent clients on cases ranging from drug dealing to blackmail and murder.

“Every criminal lawyer is fed up about being asked how they can defend criminals,” said Tuckers' senior partner Franklin Sinclair, a former president of Manchester Law Society.

“The Briefs shows people about why we do our job, how hard our job is, it shows the long hours we work and it also shows how poorly paid we are.

“We want to tell people our side of the story, and I think this has been done in a very good way. The documentary isn't ground-breaking, but it raises awareness, it's got humour and it's got a serious side to it too.”

In the first programme, the lawyers represent a drug-dealing mum and a man on trial for blackmail.

The second episode it shows the case of a performance poet accused of benefit fraud, a particularly emotive murder, and a gay couple whose fights always seem to end up in a police station.

Programme-makers at Chameleon Television spent a year filming with Tuckers Solicitors, which handles more than 10,000 clients a year.
More than half of its cases are legally- aided.

Unusually, the cameras were allowed into police stations, so viewers can see lawyers giving advice to clients following their arrest, although no officers were interviewed.

Franklin said his lawyers are sometimes the only people taking the side of the accused in a criminal case, and it is their job to gain the trust of those they represent.

“We're there to support them; we have to explain things to them, as best we can. We have to make them feel like we're on their side,” he said.
Franklin is also unapologetic about the firm’s need to make money.

“It's been suggested that we profit from our clients' bad behaviour. Obviously in very simple terms we do, but firstly let me point out that we are a business and, if we don't make any profit, we won't survive, and there won't be any criminal law firms defending anybody. And as a senior judge recently said, nobody else protects the vulnerable as well as criminal lawyers do.”

The Briefs will air on ITV1 on Thursday, August 2 and Thursday, August 9 at 9pm.

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